YAH'S PASSPORT

 Hi there!

How are you doing today? I'm hoping that you are doing well, and I pray that God continues to be with you and to help you. 

Welcome to today's gist. 

So I was in church and I heard something that I'd like to share with you. Someone said "if God had a wallet, yours would be the photo in it." 

Now I'm going to assume that we all know the importance of having a passport photo readily available in your wallet, especially when situations of emergency arise and you need to quickly affix your passport to some document or the other. I personally have been in situations where I've been extremely lucky to find just that extra passport remaining in my wallet that saved the day.

A passport is a replica of your likeness, it is a document that gives the viewer a physical description of the person whose passport is being looked at. So if I am the passport in God's wallet, it means I am the person He shows when He wants someone to see who He is, to know what He looks like, to observe His behavior. That's me, and that's you too! When God wants to show Himself to anyone, you are the person He brings them in contact with, so when they see you as a Christian, the image and opinion of you will most likely become their opinion of God. 

When I had this thought, I felt equal parts humbled and rebuked. Humbled, at the thought that I, miniscule and infinitesimal me, am the one God has chosen to be His exact likeness here on Earth, it's a privilege that no other creation can claim –nothing else had it been said about ‭‭"So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27, Amplified Version) That's a lot of honour that God bestowed on me and you! But somehow over the years, we have trivialized this to mean that God made us to physically look like Him, especially when we want to argue that no one is an ugly person. But God had so much more than physical attributes in mind! God created you to look like Him, to be a mirror that He looks at to behold His image, that's why He replicated His power in you so that you have dominion over the Earth in similitude of the one He has over the Heavens and creation at large. God made you to be like Him! The thought humbled me, because I know without a doubt that there's absolutely nothing I could ever have done, or do, that would make me worthy of such an honour, in fact He gave me the honour before I even came into existence. 

The rebuke I felt came when I thought about how I've been representing God over the years; I think sometimes of the things I've done and how I've acted in situations and I almost feel like entering the ground because I sure wasn't representing God well in those situations. As a Christian who publicly proclaims to follow God, whatever you do will be attributed to God, whether you like it or not. See we're very fond of saying "drop God one side first" when we want to act in aberration of what God expects, but guess what? The people watching you will not drop God one side! They will attribute your actions to God. 

There's a chorus in the Baptist Hymnal that goes "Let others see Jesus in you, let others see Jesus in you, keep telling the story, be faithful and true, let others see Jesus in you." I want you to ask yourself, and please be very honest with your answer, "the life I am living, does it properly represent God, not sometimes or once in a while, but always?" Am I sometimes 'caught unfresh'? When you examine your life, your thoughts, your words and your actions, can you honestly say you've been representing God well? 

Please I enjoin you not to make excuses for yourself while you answer these questions, be truthful –it's between you and God after all and both of you know the truth.

When I asked myself these questions, I felt rebuked by myself because I know that I've actually not represented God well. See, representing God well isn't about just having God in the midst of other things, God isn't an ingredient to be added to your life's pot of soup, He's the water in your cup; when you want to drink water, you don't add sugar to it and say you're drinking water, no, you drink only the water. But as seemingly singular as water is, it has 2 elements in each molecule: hydrogen and water,. So whether you decide to call it water or H²O –the koko is still the same, it has 2 molecules of hydrogen and 1 molecule of oxygen; in the same vein, when I say that God should be the only water in your cup, it means it should only be Him that is found in you, it is only His elements should be present in you –IT MUST BE HIM, AND NO ONE ELSE! You don't mix God! When you decide to put other things with God, you're diluting His heat and then you become lukewarm, and He says He will spit the lukewarm water out of His mouth (Revelation 3:16), may that not be our portion in Jesus name, amen.

You see the import of being a replica of God and the likeness of Him that people know is that when people are looking to point who God is, they'll point at you; your behavior, your lifestyle, your actions, your words, they all shape people's conception of God whether you like it or not. That is why Jesus tells us: "In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16, NIV) This means that if our lights do not shine and if our deeds aren't good, it won't be praise and glory will be going to God, it will be dishonour. May God never be dishonoured on our account!

Victoria Orenze sang "when they see me, they see Jesus", I pray that is our testimony, that when people see us, they see Jesus as He truly is, and not some muddied version. 

NLS HOT GIST: The people that are alright in this Port Harcourt no too plenty like that. On Tuesday, I went outside school to get food and as I was coming back, I was about to cross a 'one-way' road. As would be expected, I was looking in the direction of the incoming traffic and using that to gauge my walking, only for one small bus to come and start using the one way to drive up, as opposed to down that it was intended. Crazy thing, the identical road for the people going up was there, separated only by the road divider, yet this bus decided to pass the wrong way and it nearly hit me. Do you know what the conductor said "e for hit am, her mind for dey." Imagine! 

Well that's that about that as far as that is concerned. See you next week. 

Love, 

Achenyo. 

PS. I'd love to hear your thoughts, do leave a comment, thank you.